X fails to start on MSI Radeon 9250 with FC11

[kalsig]

Hi, I'm a long time Win XP and Ubuntu user and I recently wanted to make the switch to FC11. When I downloaded the LiveCD iso, verified the checksums, and tried booting, everything seemed to be okay until X started up (after the Fedora logo on the splash screen flashed). What I typically get when starting up is a screen with black and white streaks across it. The mouse cursor is simply a black rectangle on the screen which I assume is the bounding box for the mouse graphic.
I had a similar problem with Ubuntu 9.04 and 8.10, but Ubuntu 8.04 seemed to work fine. I presume it's an issue with the newest version of X. On Ubuntu, I also had some success with forcing VESA drivers, but I have not been able to force VESA drivers using FC11. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

[reed9]

Graphics problems and Fedora aren't my strong suit, but the open source radeon driver should work well with this card.

Are you able to get to a console login by hitting CTRL+ALT+F2? I would double check the chipset of the card with

/sbin/lspci

and post the output of

lsmod

so we can spot what driver module is loading.

[kalsig]

Okay, let's have a look. in lspci, my graphics card shows up as as a 9200 PRO, which is strange because my retail box is clearly marked with a 9250 label.

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (Secondary) (rev 01)

And next, here's a readout of the graphics card in my lsmod. It looks like it's trying to use the proprietary radeon drivers. I haven't had any success with these drivers in the past.

usb_storage            82508  0 
ata_generic             4312  0 
radeon                480248  2 
drm                   166212  2 radeon
i2c_algo_bit            4836  1 radeon
i2c_core               18056  4 i2c_nforce2,radeon,drm,i2c_algo_bit
sata_nv                20020  2 
pata_amd                9832  1

What do you suggest I do next? And once again, thanks for taking the time to help me out.

[reed9]

Radeon is actually the open source drive. The closed source driver module is called fglrx. From what I've read, fglrx is not available through the rpmfusion repository. In this case, I don't think it would matter, since I don't believe the proprietary driver supports your card with the Xorg version Fedora 11 uses.

This is the best I've been able to find on possible solutions to your problem.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Commo...phics_adapters

[kalsig]

Okay, things still don't seem to be working. I've tried all of the methods listed on the page that you provided. I tried switching from Radeon drivers to ati drivers. I've even tried swapping out for VESA drivers through xorg.conf. When I was trying Ubuntu 8.10, the VESA drivers seemed to allow me to at least view my desktop. VESA drivers on FC11 don't even allow me to start the X server (I simply get a prompt screen that I can't type into).
It's also interesting to note that I'm getting similar problems with all of the newest releases of various Linux distros (OpenSUSE, Ubuntu 9.04, and FC11). Older releases seem to work fine. I assume that my problem lies with the newest X server. Is there anything else that I can try?

[reed9]

Unfortunately, I just don't know enough about this to have any other tips or tricks to try. With all of the changes to Xorg recently, there seems to have been a fair number of regressions with video drivers.

Your best bet may be to downgrade to an older release that works for now and hope the next F12 or Ubuntu 9.10 fix the problems.

You can also try a really bleeding edge distro like Arch, since it has a newer kernel and newer drivers than Fedora or Ubuntu, and see if the problems persist.

Sidux is almost as bloody as Arch, and might be good to try also. I know they have the 2.6.30 kernel. I'm not sure what version of Xorg and Xserver they're up to.

[kalsig]

I think I'll have to hold out until Ubuntu 9.10. Arch Linux sounds great, and I'd love to give it a try, but it seems a little too bleeding edge for me.
It appears that other users have reported issues with ATI/AMD video cards that they have not been able to resolve. For the time being, I'll simply have to wait and hope that 9.10 works for me. Thanks again for your help, it was greatly appreciated.

[kalsig]

I don't believe this, but I tried downloading the x64 version of FC11 and Ubuntu 9.04 and both worked without a hitch. All of my wireless and graphics drivers magically fell into place, and I was able to use Compiz Fusion (something that I have not been able to do in the past)
I'm not quite sure what variable solved the issues (Different 64-bit drivers?) but I'm glad to have linux back up and running.

If anybody else is having similar issues with any malfunctioning hardware, and has a 64-bit processor available to them, it might be worth trying the 64-bit version of the distro.

[resolved - thread closed]

[reed9]

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Just to say, you don't have to fully commit to Arch or any other distro. Partition off 10 gigs or so and do a test run. At the least, you learn something. And while Arch is rolling release and keeps its packages very current, I've actually had less troubles with it than other distros. But it does require paying attention to what you're upgrading and keeping an eye out for potential troubles on the Arch forums.